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to be accomplished by means of the Victoria Institute. Those who rather distrust the deductions of science than the statements of Scripture are invited to join the new Society and help "to investigate fully and impartially the most important questions of philosophy and science, but more especially those that bear upon the great truths revealed in Holy Scripture, with the view of defending these truths against "the oppositions of science, falsely so called," that is, against supposed contradictions of science, which, it is anticipated, will be proved to be, not the contradictions of true science, but merely the rash deductions of false or pseudo science.*

To this proposed course, it may obviously be objected, in limine, that it assumes science to be at fault, and with this preconceived view it sets about its investigations. But the answer to this is equally casy, namely, that the assumption truly represents the state of mind of those who propose to pursue this course. It is simply a fact that they do distrust science, and do not distrust the Scriptures; and, therefore, they are in a manner bound to see whether their distrust of science can be fully justified or not. Besides, it can be a matter of little moment whether they expect to find one result or another, so

* One or two gentlemen, who have otherwise and generally approved of the objects of the Victoria Institute, and one at least who has joined it, consider that this "object" is somewhat too negative in its scope. They would have preferred that the primary object of the Society should have been, to show positively how scientific discoveries illustrate and corroborate the truths of revelation. Of course, it by no means follows that this view may not yet prevail in the Society. But it should be kept in mind that the Victoria Institute, as a matter of fact, originated as a defence movement. The first work, therefore, it has set its members and associates, is the investigation of the alleged facts and so called science which Dr. Colenso, Dr. Temple, and others have publicly declared to be in opposition to Scripture statements. And this is surely the natural and proper course for those who dispute the existence of such "facts" or "science." Moreover, for my own part, I would beg leave to adopt the prudent language employed by the Rev. H. B. Tristram before the British Association at Bath, in 1864, upon reading his valuable paper "On the Deposits in the Basin of the Dead Sea." He said he "had a dread of attempting to corroborate Scripture by natural or physical arguments which may be refuted; for the objector is apt to think that when he has refuted the weak argument, he has refuted the Scriptural statement.”— (Rep. of Brit. Assoc., 1864, p. 73.)

I ought to add here that the Scriptural phrase, "oppositions of science falsely so called," is not used in the sense of the Greek original, as employed by St. Paul, but only as commonly used now in the popular sense the words imply in English, which is also, perhaps, all they mean as rendered in the Vulgate, viz. :-"Oppositiones falsi nominis scientiæ."

that their investigations are really "full and impartial," as they profess they shall be. But some might fairly retort-in fact, the objection has been made-that the admitted preconceptions thus entertained may interfere with the impartiality of such investigations. The members of the Victoria Institute cannot, of course, dispute the probable truth of that general proposition. But they may claim it as an argument equally applicable to those who differ with them, and on the other side assume that science is always right, and who are therefore ready, with the writers of the "Essays and Reviews," or Dr. Colenso, or with sceptics generally, to set aside Scripture, or force upon it new "interpretations:"-" interpretations," that is, so-called, not of prophecies or "dark sayings," but the "explaining away" of plain language, which requires no interpretation in order to be understood.

But at this point the sceptic as to "science" may claim to join issue with the sceptic of Scripture, and say that he has good reason for his distrust of quasi science, such as the sceptic of scriptural truth has nothing to offer. And this brings us to the second object of the Victoria Institute. It is

"To associate together men of science and authors who have already been engaged in such investigations, and all others who may be interested in them, in order to strengthen their efforts by association; and, by bringing together the results of such labours, after full discussion, in the printed transactions of an institution, to give greater force and influence to proofs and arguments which might be regarded as comparatively weak and valueless, or be little known, if put forward merely by individuals.”

What we say is this, that what is called "science," and boasted of as so "certain" by some, is far from certain,-is continually changing and altering,-is disputed and denied and controverted, on scientific grounds, by very competent persons; and that if the arguments and disproofs even already put forward by individuals were brought together and well weighed, the public would be astonished to find how much there was to be said against the acceptance of what some persons boast of as scientific truth. And, it may be admitted, they tacitly allege that opinions and facts and arguments which happen to be against the predominant opinions of the leading scientific men, have scarcely a fair chance of a hearing in the existing scientific societies, and, at least, that they lose all influence as against theories which happen to have obtained the sanction of some man, or men, of high scientific reputation.

But, to leave generalities, let us glance at a few actual instances of how "science" so-called, has recently shifted and changed; and how the erroneous theories of the eminent have

held their ground against the sounder views of less-reputed individuals; though these views have at last tardily been admitted as most probable by the highest scientific authorities. We have, perhaps, two of the best specimens of such changes in scientific conclusions in Sir Charles Lyell's Address, as President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, at Bath, in 1864; inasmuch as he there gives up, as no longer to be regarded as science, the two grand foundation "facts" (as they previously were regarded) of geological science, which were boldly put forth but a few years previously, as well-ascertained scientific truths that completely upset the scriptural account of the Creation in the first chapter of Genesis. I allude to what is called the nebulous theory of astronomy, with what was founded upon it, the plutonic theory of geology; and to the supposed existence of azoic ages, during which it was supposed there was no organic life in this world; a conclusion founded upon what was supposed to be a geological "fact," that the lowest sedimentary strata of the earth were totally devoid of all organic remains.

Now, it was upon the assumption of the truth of the nebular theory, and of this proof of the azoic ages of the world, that Mr. C. W. Goodwin in "Essays and Reviews" made his distinctive attack upon "the Mosaic Cosmogony." He maintained, as against the scriptural account of the creation of the heaven and the earth, that "the first clear view which we obtain [from science] of the early condition of the earth, presents to us a ball of matter, fluid with intense heat, spinning on its own axis, and revolving round the sun." This is Laplace's nebular theory; only it is put forward by Mr. Goodwin from the point when the earth has become "fluid," instead of beginning at the beginning when it was supposed to be in a gaseous state, or Mr. Goodwin may have used the word "fluid" in a loose sense, that would comprehend gaseous matter. Here at any rate is a fuller statement of the nebular theory as it appears in M. Figuier's "Earth before the Deluge," published in Paris so recently as 1863. He says:

"The theory we are about to develop, and which considers the existing earth as an extinguished sun, as a refrigerated star, as a nebula which has passed from a gaseous to a solid state, this beautiful conception, which binds together in so brilliant a manner geology and astronomy, belongs to the mathematician Laplace... We have established, in commencing, that the centre of our globe is still, in our own day, elevated to 195,000°, a temperature which surpasses all the imagination can conceive. We cannot have any difficulty in admitting that, by a heat so excessive, all the materials which now enter into the composition of the globe were reduced, at the first, to a gaseous or vaporous

condition. It is requisite, therefore, to represent our planet in its primitive condition as an aggregate of aeriform fluids as a substance entirely gaseous. .. Raised to a temperature of white-heat (rouge-blanc), by the excessive heat which affected it, the gaseous mass, which constituted then the earth, shone in space as shines the sun at the present time, as shine to our eyes in the serenity of the night the fixed stars and the planets.

Revolving round the sun, according to the law of universal gravitation, this burning gaseous mass was necessarily subject to the laws which affect other material substances. It became cooler, it gradually ceded a portion of its heat to the icy regions of the interplanetary spaces, in the midst of which it traced the thread of its blazing orbit. But in the course of this continual cooling down, and at the end of a period, of which it would be impossible to fix, even approximately, the duration, the primitively gaseous star arrived at a liquid condition. . . . . Mechanics teach us that a liquid body kept in a state of rotation takes necessarily the spherical form; it is thus that the earth took the globular or spheroidal form which is proper to it, as to the majority of the heavenly bodies." *

Here it will be observed that the basis of this cosmological speculation is the supposed geological "fact," that it had been ascertained that the centre of our earth is elevated even yet to the inconceivably enormous temperature of 195,000°. This notion or quasi fact" was again based upon an assumption that the increase of the earth's temperature, as we descend, proceeds at a certain ratio, more and more, till we reach the centre; and, further, that the granite rocks were formed by means of dry heat of this great intensity and a subsequent crystallization by cooling down.

But let us see how now stand these foundation "facts" of this astronomo-geological science, which was put forward so confidently only a few years ago against the Mosaic Cosmogony. In Sir Charles Lyell's Bath address, he says:-" The study, of late years, of the constituent parts of granite has led to the conclusion that their consolidation has taken place at temperatures far below those formerly supposed to be indispensable." "Various experiments have led to the conclusion that the minerals which enter most largely into the composition of the metamorphic rocks have not been formed by crystallizing from a state of fusion, or in the dry way, but that they have been derived

** Figuier, La Terre avant le Déluge, Paris, 1863 (p. 27). Since this was written, I have observed that the publication of an English translation from the fourth French edition of this interesting work has been announced by Messrs. Chapman & Hall. In this work, geology is described as "preeminently a French science!" which may account, perhaps, for no modification of the nebular theory being made in this last edition, notwithstanding Sir Charles Lyell's Bath address,

from liquid solutions, or in the wet way—a process requiring a far less intense degree of heat."

Thus vanishes all that had been taught as geological science for half a century, at least, as to the original formation of granite!

Sir Charles Lyell also says, with reference to a co-relative part of the same theory, with its inconceivable high temperature of 195,000° in the earth's centre, and its matter thus reduced to a gaseous or fluid condition ::- "The exact nature of the chemical changes which hydrothermal action may effect in the earth's interior will long remain obscure to us, because the regions where they take place are inaccessible to man ;* but the manner in which volcanoes have shifted their position throughout a vast series of geological epochs-becoming extinct in one region, and breaking out in another-may, perhaps, explain the increase of heat as we descend towards the interior, without the necessity of our appealing to an original central heat, or the igneous fluidity of the earth's nucleus."

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And so away goes the foundation "fact" of geology upon which was based the nebular theory of the earth's formation out of a gyrating globe of gas, consisting of intensely hot fused granite! It is at once amusing and melancholy, now, read over the words in which this rival and scientific view of the cosmos was so confidently put forth by Mr. C. W. Goodwin against the old "Mosaic Cosmogony." I repeat' his words, pregnant as they now are with warning, as regards science falsely so-called, in its opposition to revealed truth!-"The first clear view which we obtain (says Mr. Goodwin) of the carly condition of the earth presents to us a ball of matter, fluid with intense heat, spinning on its own axis, and revolving round the sun!"

So much for the primary or foundation "facts" of geology, which had been taught as "science" in this country ever since the publication of Dr. Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise; and which are yet graphically exhibited, in all the geological charts of sections of the crust of the earth, in all our still current geological works of science.

But leaving the earth's centre and its now abandoned igneous fluidity, let us come to the oldest strata, heretofore taught to have been "Azoic," or formed before any organic beings had been created. The "fact" upon which this geological theory was based, was simply this, that what were

This is a very different and much more rational tone than the absurd and confident enunciation of a definite temperature of 195,000°, admitted, at the same time, to be inconceivable !

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